Category Archives: Mutual Fund Commentary

July 1, 2025

By David Snowball

Dear friends,

Welcome to the “Midsommar in Scandinavia” issue of the Mutual Fund Observer. Chip and I are enjoying a long-planned holiday in Sweden and Norway. We’re equally delighted that you’re here … and we’re there!

In this month’s Observer…

Among other things (how would I know for sure? I’m in Gamla Stan), Lynn Bolin addresses the emerging threat of tariff-induced inflation with “Protecting Against Tariff Induced Inflation,” analyzing how widespread tariffs will likely be passed through to consumers and drive inflation to an estimated 3.4% peak next quarter. Drawing on five years of post-pandemic bond performance data, he demonstrates Continue reading →

Protecting Against Tariff Induced Inflation

By Charles Lynn Bolin

The US Treasury first implemented Inflation-Protected Bonds (TIPS) in 1997, and they now make up about 7% of the Treasury market.  Since then, inflation has rarely gone above 3% until 2021. Tariffs (customs duties) began surging in 2018, and President Trump is now implementing widespread tariffs. With retailers having low profit margins, these tariffs will mostly be passed on a tax on consumers. This article represents my research on how to invest the bond portion of a portfolio to reduce volatility and prepare for higher inflation.

Inflation Forecasts

Inflation by various measures has fallen below 2.3%. Tariff increases were announced on April 2nd, and it takes time for products with the additional tariffs to reach the shelves. The Fed – Monetary Policy: Beige Book describes prices increasing at a Continue reading →

Mark Headley, once and again CEO: “there’s good bones there”

By David Snowball

Matthews Asia is navigating a challenging period. Founded 30 years ago by Paul Matthews, the firm achieved a rare trifecta: consistently outstanding risk-sensitive returns across the entire fund family, outstanding success, such as the once $60 million AUM firm touched the $36 billion mark, and enormous professional respect as the country’s premier Asian investing specialist with a robust internal culture and deep bench.

The Matthews Asia of 2025 feels a long way from that success.

Assets have plummeted Continue reading →

More dirty sex and your spanked portfolio: A three-year review

By David Snowball

Many and many a year ago, in the kingdom of ABC, Woody Allen was one of my very first guests. And we consented to take questions from an eager audience of mostly young people. Like ourselves.

The questioner looked like a high school girl and shouted to Woody from the balcony, “Do you think sex is dirty?”

Allen: “It is if you do it right.” (Dick Cavett, “As the comics say, These kids today! I tell ya.” New York Times, 9/13/2013)

I’d rather hoped that the observation originated with someone rather more wholesome, Groucho Marx or Mae West, for example, but we’re stuck with Continue reading →

Launch Alert: Stewart Investors Worldwide Leaders fund

By David Snowball

On June 18, 2025, Stewart Investors, an active, long-only global equity specialist with $16.5 billion in assets under management, launched the Stewart Investors Worldwide Leaders fund (SWWLX) with an initial investment from a U.S. foundation. SWWLX is the firm’s first fund available to regular US investors.

Stewart is Edinburgh-based and describes themselves this way: “We are a small team of passionate investors managing, on behalf of our clients, investment portfolios with a focus Continue reading →

TGN Bull Extends, Plus 2025 Mid-Year Review

By Charles Boccadoro

Here are links to chart deck and video …

MFOP 2025 Mid-Year Review Chart Deck

MFOP 2025 Mid-Year Review Webinar Video

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We’ve scheduled our mid-year review webinar for Thursday (today), 3 July at 11 am Pacific (2pm Eastern). We will use MultiSearch ANALYTICS and PreSet Screens to highlight performance of funds across different market segments. Please join us by registering here.

A couple improvements Continue reading →

Briefly Noted . . .

By TheShadow

Launches and Reorganizations

The Angel Oak Total Return ETF is in registration. The managers will have the freedom to invest in just about every conceivable sort of income-generating security, from investment-grade, corporate bonds to asset-backed securities that include student loan portfolios. Ward Bortz, Namit Sinha, and Clayton Triick will be the portfolio managers of the ETF. Expenses have not been stated at this time.

Goldman Sachs‘ Enhanced U.S. Equity, Strategic Growth Fund, Focused Value, and Technology Opportunities funds will be reorganized Continue reading →

June 1, 2025

By David Snowball

Welcome to the June issue of the Mutual Fund Observer!

It’s a grand month, whose start was marked by the 165th commencement ceremony celebrating Augustana’s graduates. The college was born in 1860, an expression of longing and ambition. Swedish immigrants in the Midwest – and there were a lot of them – wanted to provide their children with a better life, which, to them, meant a good education. At the same time, they didn’t want their children to forget their homeland and its proud traditions.

So, they made a college. Modeled after the great universities in northern Europe, Augustana became an expression of faith: in the welcome that America gave its new citizens, in the country’s endless promise, in the power of education, Continue reading →

Investing Internationally for the Timid Investor

By Charles Lynn Bolin

I like Will Rogers’ quote, “Don’t gamble; take all your savings and buy some good stock and hold it till it goes up, then sell it. If it don’t go up, don’t buy it.” A good friend of mine once said that a balanced portfolio will usually have funds that are losing money. Then there are the unusual years like 2022 when few categories other than money market funds, short-term bonds, and commodities had positive returns. This article looks at how Vanguard Global Wellesley Income Fund (VGWIX) may fit into the portfolio of a timid investor, or how WisdomTree Dynamic Currency Hedged International Equity Fund (DDWM) might fit into the portfolio of a somewhat Continue reading →

Stories over stats: A simple approach to chaos-resistant investing

By Don Glickstein

I love baseball and personal finance, but I barely understand baseball’s sabermetrics and finance analytics. I want a good story.

The stat guys despise the Tampa Bay Rays’ Chandler Simpson because he only has a single tool: speed. The one home run he’s hit in his entire career was inside the park. This is a guy who can barely hit a ball out of the infield. I love him because he’s a Continue reading →

Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men

By Charles Lynn Bolin

I created my best laid plans of mice and men for retirement, or as Dwight D. Eisenhower said, “plans are worthless, but planning is indispensable”. I follow much of what Christine Benz recommends in How to Retire: 20 Lessons for a Happy, Successful, and Wealthy Retirement. I divide my intermediate investment bucket, consisting of Traditional IRAs, into conservative sub-portfolios of bonds that I manage and more aggressive sub-portfolios of stocks and bonds managed by Fidelity and Vanguard for growth and income. In this article, I look at managing withdrawals in a secular bear market with Continue reading →

“Something wicked this way comes,” Ray Bradbury (1962)

By David Snowball

It was a great and horrifying story about two young boys and the arrival of the Cooger and Dark Carnival in Green Town, Illinois. If you entered the carnival grounds late at night, you might be drawn to its iconic ride, Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show. It’s a story about the ways in which evil can be a powerful temptation to even the best of Continue reading →

Briefly Noted

By TheShadow

Updates

Jason Gottlieb becomes Artisan’s new CEO on June 4, 2025. He’s not a new import. Mr. Gottlieb has been the president of Artisan Partners since 2021. He joined the firm first in October 2016, prior to which he led Goldman Sachs’ Alternative Investment and Manager Selection Groups and was a portfolio manager on Goldman Sachs Multi-Manager Alternatives Fund. Artisan’s superpower has been its ability to identify and attract superstar management teams from elsewhere; the term they once used Continue reading →

May 1, 2025

By David Snowball

Dear friends,

Welcome to May, traditionally, the month in which to sell in!

These first few weeks of May are an odd time on campus. My seniors are scrambling for jobs (or antidepressants), the juniors are teeing up internships, and the youngsters are … well, mostly wondering what just happened to Continue reading →

Trending Funds YTD 2025

By Charles Lynn Bolin

Each month, I update my ranking system for the thousand or so funds that I track using the MFO Premium fund screener and Lipper global dataset. I then compare the funds that I own to the trending funds to see if I want to make any changes. I follow a diversified traditional portfolio approach with over half managed by Fidelity and Vanguard. In this article, I look at the Lipper Categories and highest ranked funds for bonds, mixed assets, and equities.

Bond Funds

Bond funds are ranked based upon 1) three-year risk-adjusted returns (Martin Ratio), 2) short-term returns and momentum, 2) risk (drawdowns and Ulcer Index), 3) bond quality, and 4) yields, among other metrics. The funds Continue reading →

My Investment Strategy For 2025

By Charles Lynn Bolin

With the high volatility over tariffs, uncertainty, and concerns over the independence of the Federal Reserve, parts of this article may be out of date within hours of completing it. How does one invest in this environment? I have updated my Investment System to reflect my current strategy. In short, it is set up as a traditional 60% stock/40% bond portfolio within a range of 55% to 65% stocks based on my investment model. I set the model up to make small quarterly adjustments based on volatility-adjusted momentum and a shift between international and domestic growth based on valuations and momentum.

In April, I searched for and found that I can Continue reading →

Building a chaos-resistant portfolio, Round 2

By David Snowball

In December 2024, we forecast chaotic markets. Even if you were broadly supportive of Mr. Trump’s policy direction, the fact remains that he has announced, altered, suspended, or cancelled tariffs more than 28 times in 2025, including pausing some tariffs within 24 hours of announcing that the suggestion he might pause tariffs was “fake news.” His desire to reduce federal spending was manifested in the decision to turn Elon Musk loose to ransack the government in search of a promised $1 trillion in savings. Bloomberg’s assessment: “100 days of DOGE: lots of chaos, not so much efficiency.” Continue reading →

Launch Alert: T Rowe Price Capital Appreciation Premium Income ETF

By David Snowball

On March 26, 2025, T Rowe Price launched T Rowe Price Capital Appreciation Premium Income ETF (TCAL), the latest addition to its capital appreciation suite of funds and ETFs. The fund is managed by a six-person team with David Giroux in the lead. It posts an expense ratio of 0.34%.

The fund’s unique niche within the Capital Appreciation suite is its focus on “regular” income payouts. It will normally invest in equities with a covered call options strategy overlay. The equities will be Continue reading →

Dynamic Alpha Macro (DYMIX)

By David Snowball

Objective and strategy

The managers aspire to outperform the S&P 500 over meaningful time periods, while managing risk by blending non-correlated assets such as a discretionary global macro strategy with a portfolio of US equities. The portfolio has two components: a US equity component, which is executed by buying low-cost ETFs, and a macro-driven Futures Trading Strategy. Through rebalancing between these approaches, they hope to harness divergent performance drivers to create what they term “Dynamic Alpha.” The equity strategy divides its investments between growth, high-dividend, and broad market stocks. The Future Trading Strategy, executed by a trading adviser, provides exposure to over Continue reading →

Braham’s Chaos-Resistant Fund Portfolio

By David Snowball

Friend Lewis Braham, writing in Barron’s, offered “The Chaos-Resistant Fund Portfolio” on April 7, 2025. For those who have not seen Lewis’s essay, here’s a recap. He begins with a fairly stark warning that parallels ours:

Voters elected Trump specifically as a populist disrupter. He’s doing what they asked. While Democrats call Trump an autocrat for consolidating power in the executive branch, that’s largely irrelevant to Wall Street, as money managers have happily invested billions in authoritarian or quasi-authoritarian regimes … The problem now is Continue reading →